


Best Friends

by AlmondRose



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: 1 am posting again, Angst, Fluff, Gen, feelings i guess???, hmm, i seem to have a pattern here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 00:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10425267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmondRose/pseuds/AlmondRose
Summary: Damian isn't sure what the problem is, besides that Brown seems to be gaining new friends.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is a future where damian and steph live together (platonically) and are partners (i think they're both nightwing) in crime-fighting and i think the official term for their relationship would be "queerplatonic partners" but i also could be wrong idk 
> 
> also they're both ace but that's not relevant to this fic AT ALL

The problem is, Damian reflects sourly, is that he’s not even sure  _ why  _ it’s a problem. He’s not even sure why it bothers him so much, why he gets so mad when it happens. 

 

“It” being Stephanie running off with Danvers and Sandsmark, of course. 

 

Every time Damian wakes up and she’s not in her room, every time she leaves right before patrol, every time she comes back from the mall beaming too brightly, there’s an unpleasant twisting in his stomach and he has to excuse himself. 

 

If it’s before a patrol, he goes out anyway, but without her constant stream of chatter in his ears, it always seems so  _ lonely.  _

 

He misses her, he realizes, when he’s in the shower after patrol. Damian can hear her singing in her room, and he  _ misses her.  _

 

But where has she gone?

 

Damian goes back to his room and the lights shut off in the hall--he hears Stephanie on the phone, chattering away, which usually doesn’t bother him, but today--and lately--ug. 

 

He buries his face in his pillow and there’s a knock on his door; he ignores it. 

  
  


\---

  
  


“Damian?” Stephanie asks softly from the other side of his door. Damian rolls over and doesn’t respond. “Okay...I’m going out.”

 

He expects her to say “with Cassie and Kara” but instead she says, “with Cass and Tim. Apparently Cass needs help picking out a dress for the wedding. Typical. Um, guess I’ll see you later?” 

 

And with that, she’s gone, and Damian wonders why she even bothered to tell him at all. 

  
  


\---

 

He’s making an omelet and the door opens. 

 

“I’m home!” Stephanie sings, and he hears footsteps then she jumps on his back, wrapping her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. 

 

“Brown--” he sputters, waving his spatula around. 

 

“Hi,” she says, and he can almost  _ hear  _ her grin. “We are gonna talk, you and me.”

 

“Nooooo,” he groans. 

 

“Yessss,” she says happily. “I had a long hard think today--”

 

“Hope it wasn’t painful,” Damian snorts. 

 

“Ha ha, real funny. You’re a real comedian.  _ Anyway,  _ I was thinking while Tim was being a groomzilla and Cass was trying to convince him that red isn’t her color. Which is a lie, by the way, she looks like a million bucks in everything, but whatever. We’re gonna talk.”

 

“Is this talk scheduled?” Damian asks dryly, turning off the stove and dumping his omelette onto his plate. 

 

“Yep,” Stephanie says, still clinging to his back as he walks to the table. “As soon as you make me an omelette.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“You heard me,” she says. 

 

“Make yourself an omelette.”

 

“You make them better than I do.”

 

“Not surprising.”

 

“Wow. I’m offended. That’s offensive. I’m not sure if I should call Bruce, Dick, Talia, or Alfred to berate them on their poor job of raising you. Manners, much?”

 

“Stephanie,” he sighs, and she slides off his back. 

 

“What?” she asks, walking around him and grinning widely. He rolls his eyes and puts his omelette down, heading to the stove. “Yay!” 

 

\---

 

“Explain,” Damian says, pointing his fork at Stephanie. She blinks, swallows her food. 

 

“Okay,” she says, putting her fork down. “You’ve been really distant lately.”

 

“What?” Damian asks, gaping at her. 

 

“You. You’ve been distant. Every time I try to stay in, you hide in your room. You don’t talk to me during patrol. I tried to say goodnight to you last night and you ignored me!”

 

“I could’ve been asleep,” Damian mumbles, feeling oddly abashed. 

 

“But you weren’t,” she says. “You’d gotten out of the shower, like, three seconds before.”

 

“Whatever,” Damian mumbles. 

 

“No, not ‘whatever’! Dami, what’s eating you?” Damian huffs out a sigh. He doesn’t want to say it. 

 

She raises her eyebrow and he turns away. 

 

“Fine,” he says. “You are...spending a lot of time with Danvers and Sandsmark.”

 

“Yeah, so?” Stephanie asks. “They’re my friends. Maybe--maybe more than friends, I’m not sure.” 

 

Damian wills his expression not to change. 

 

“Oh,” he says. “Then should I….?”

 

“Should you what?” Stephanie asks, and she sounds so bewildered, and Damian’s not sure why she doesn’t know.

 

“Leave, or something,” he says, softly. 

 

“What?” she asks, her mouth falling open. “No! Why would you--Damian, what are you  _ talking  _ about?”

 

“Well if you have  _ them  _ then you won’t need  _ me  _ anymore,” Damian admits, and he thinks this is the first time he’s even thought of that notion, but it’s the root of his problems, all the same. 

 

Her face changes entirely, going from shocked to upset in the span of a few seconds.

 

“No,” she says. “No, Damian. I won’t abandon you.”

 

“But…”

 

“Listen,” she says. “You’ll always be my most favorite little badger in the whole world, okay? That’s not gonna change because I got some new friends. C’mon, Dami, did you really think you could get rid of me that easy?”

 

She smiles at him, a small one, and he can’t help but smile back. 

 

“I suppose,” he says. “Fatgirl.”

 

“That’s the spirit,” she says, her small smile growing to a grin. “There it is! Come here, I need a hug.”

 

“No way,” Damian says, and she gets out of her chair and goes around the table and wraps her arms around him. 

 

“No more distant, okay?” she says. “I really want you to like them.”

 

“I suppose I could  _ try,”  _ Damian sniffs. He feels her grin against his shoulder.

 

“Thank you,” she says, very quietly. Then she straightens and looks him in the eye, her hands on his shoulders. “What do you say we have a movie night tonight, just me and you?”

 

“That sounds adequate. Patrol after?”

 

“But of course,” she says. “Now come on, we gotta do dishes and I should  _ probably  _ tell Cassie and Kara that our issues have been resolved.”

 

“You told them?” Damian asks. He feels slightly betrayed. 

 

“Um, duh,” she says. “I naturally get very worried when my best friend might be mad at me, sooooo…..” 

 

Damian’s not really sure how to argue with that. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! hope you enjoyed <3 comments/kudos are always welcome!!


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